With the opening of Mathaf, the first Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar is racing to turn itself into the cultural hub of the Middle East

ahmedsalman:

It is going to be a while before Jean Nouvel’s celebrated National Museum of Qatar blossoms in the desert. But in the meanwhile, an architecturally modest museum with a far more ambitious mission is ready to open its doors for the New Year. The Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art aims to be a new pan-Arab center for culture and creativity, showcasing the work of modern artists from the region.

The Mathaf, pronounced MAT-haff and simply meaning “museum” in Arabic, is the third large museum project to be announced in Qatar in recent years. The expansive Museum of Islamic Art, which opened in 2008 in a building by I. M. Pei, is concerned with history – its collection dates from the 7th to the 19th centuries. Jean Nouvel’s desert rose will mostly be a Qatari exercise in national pride. The earliest pieces in the Mathaf’s collection, however, date to the 1840s. This is a museum primarily concerned with Arab modernity, considering through art some very complicated questions of identity, values and geography.

Continue reading the article at Metropolis.

-

Modern art has been gradually gaining attention in the region, and Qatar has taken the lead in this space along with Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island which is forging ahead with the Louvre, Guggenheim and others.  All in all, there is strong revival in the arts and cultural arenas.  We’re moving towards a  post-mall-centric and shopping-lovers  reputation for the region to a region that values (as historically was the case) craft, the arts and cross-cultural dialogue on a global scale.

Mathaf uses a rather interesting identity with quite an eccentric typeface that I think is right in-line with the overall brand.

Read more about Tarek Atrissi, and how he and his design studio, developed this font.  There are other great images as well.

Mathaf’s site

(Source: inthenoosphere)

Jean Nouvel‘s design for the new National Museum of Qatar utilizes technology to create a thoroughly new institution. Conceived as growing out of the ground, the building uses rings of low-lying, interlocking pavilions, to encircle a large courtyard area and encompass 430,000 square feet of indoor space. Tilting, interpenetrating disks define the pavilions’ floors, walls and roofs,  and the exterior in a sand-colored concrete.  Nouvel likens it to a “bladelike petal of the desert rose, a mineral formation of crystallized sand found in the briny layer just beneath the desert’s surface.”

Hat tip: Arch Daily